In
the old story of the Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, the King her father wants to invite the
Wise Women or Faeries to bless his daughter and his kingdom. There are 13 Wise Women but the King
only has 12 golden plates, and so he leaves out the 13th Wise Woman,
which causes all the trouble. He
can only honor the solar consciousness those 12 plates represent. His kingdom has no room for the 13th,
symbolizing the mystical and magical aspects of the Divine Feminine. Patriarchy rejects those aspects of the
Feminine that cannot be controlled.
Hopefully not for much longer!

Just
so, our society lives within a solar calendar of 12 months, instead of the
ancient lunar calendars that included a 13th Moon cycle. Because of this difference, every 18
months or so we experience a flip in the lunar cycle to accommodate that 13th
cycle. At the flip, we either have
2 New Moons or 2 Full Moons in the same astrological sign. Hence our Dark Moon and Blue Moon.

For the next 18 months, we'll find
ourselves experiencing a Full Moon in a sign before we experience the New Moon
in that sign, an inversion of the usual cycle. It seems this leads to a perceptual split, a sense that two
very different energies have to be reconciled.

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These
energies will occur in signs that are 30*/150* apart, acting like an
inconjunct. Each month we will
have to reconcile two energies that usually have a hard time being integrated,
causing lots of frustration. The
way of integration lies in becoming more discerning and disciplined so we can
break down behavior patterns that no longer serve us. When we rub up against these energies, we have to adjust and
refine our behavior.

The
Virgo-Pisces Axis

The
flip cycle is underway.

After the last
New Moon at 30* Aquarius, this Full Moon will occur in Virgo opposite the
Pisces Sun. That means the
integration needs to happen between the fixed air Aquarian New Moon seed, our
ideals, the mutable water of
Pisces, our understanding and vision of life, and the mutable earth energy of the Full Moon
in Virgo, our ability to integrate change and grow.
This tripled energy will demand discipline and focus to access and
understand the images and feelings arising from the Pisces Sun that will
nurture that Aquarian seed.

Thankfully,
Virgo is just the sign to do it! Virgo's need is to integrate knowledge
on all levels of body, mind and spirit: to continue to grow, to become a master
at the work, whether a potter, weaver, carpenter, clockmaker, computer
programmer, dancer, lawyer, mid-wife etc. What better energy to have
working for us than this attention to detail that will bring Aquarius' ideals
down to Earth in a practical way.

The
Pisces Sun sends us dreams and visions like memories of past ages that can
teach us to face the disruption that occurs at the end of an Age. This is the
mythic story we're living in. Climate change, terrorism, nuclear war,
poverty, violence, corporate control of the world; these are expressions of how
the end times play out for us. They are the dark distillation of the
patriarchy that has to die.

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They
are the shadow side of patriarchy, erupting out of the collective unconscious
out of fear of this change we have to go through. Will we learn the correct use of technology or will we
continue to let technology dominate our world? Do we really seek freedom or will we let our fear of death
hold us hostage to an unending 'war on terrorism'? We're all going to die anyway, so why not say along with
Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death!"

Patriarchal
thinking is linear, and stubbornly refuses to understand that death is required
so re-birth can happen. The light and goodness we achieved under
patriarchy will certainly be part of any new society we build.

The
re-birth begins with a new balance being struck between masculine and feminine
spirit, between the left and right brains, between the head and the heart.
Intuition is just as valid as sensation. Emotional intelligence is
just as valuable as our rational intellect. The only way we'll create a viable
future is become whole and become Wise!

So
let us invite that 13th Wise Woman to the feast. We need her blessings to meet the
future.

Cathy Pagano is the author of a new book, "Wisdom's Daughters: How Women Can Change the World". Cathy trained at the C. G. Jung Institut-Zurich in dream interpretation, then got her M.A. in Counseling Psychology in Feminine Spirituality, and along the way became a certified Life Coach. As an astrologer and storyteller, she weaves the Cosmic Stories written in the stars and from The Bard's Grove, comments on emerging archetypal themes in movies.
Cathy works with the tools of the imagination - dreams, alchemy, myths, astrology, symbolic language, storytelling, ritual - to awaken the Soul's wisdom.

I believe that Americans are called to a higher consciousness at this point in our history. We are called on to live up to our ideals and create the country our forefathers imagined. Inner consciousness needs to be acted upon for social justice.

Cathy believes that our writers and artists must take up our responsibility to create art that inspires, teaches and heals our humanity.